St. Joseph and the Pope of Fatima

During the evening of August 21, in the year of Our Lord 1879, an apparition of Our Lady appeared on the gable wall of the parish church in Knock, Ireland. She did not speak, but was accompanied by St. John the Evangelist, St. Joseph and Our Blessed Lord in the form of the Lamb from the Apocalypse. Notably, those who saw the silent apparition were the laity. The parish priest was notified and went to view the apparition but it had ended by the time he arrived.

Bl. Pius IX and Our Lady of Fatima

Just under nine years before, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Blessed Pope Pius IX had named St. Joseph as “patron of the universal Church.” Less than thirty-eight years later, in the year of Our Lord 1917, Our Lady appeared to Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto, along with their cousin Lucia de Santos at Fatima, Portugal. She appeared to the three shepherd children six times, beginning on May 13. After the sixth and final apparition on October 13, the Miracle of the Sun occurred and was witnessed by over 70,000 people. Following the Miracle, Our Lady appeared once again, this time accompanied by St. Joseph and the Christ Child who appeared to bless the world. Just like at Knock, and in the Gospels, St. Joseph said nothing.

St. Pius X

In addition to the Miracle of the Sun, the apparitions became famous for a mysterious “Third Secret.” The First Secret was the vision of Hell that Our Lady showed to the seers during the third apparition on July 13. The Second Secret predicted the end of the First World War and the outbreak of a second one. In the text of secret Our Lady stated that “if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pope Pius XI.” What is notable is that the Pope at the time was Benedict XV, who had succeeded Pope St. Pius X in 1914, who was said to have died of a broken heart from the stress of the war breaking out. Five years before, in the year of Our Lord 1909, Pope St. Pius X had approved the public recitation of the Litany of St. Joseph

Benedict XV and Pius XI

In the year of Our Lord 1920, Benedict himself had the invocation, “Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse” added to the Divine Praises. When he died two years later, the College of Cardinals elected Ambrogio Achille, Cardinal Ratti to succeed him. He took the regnal name of Pius XI. The prophecy of Our Lady was fulfilled in 1937: the fifteenth year of the pontificate of Pius XI. Like St. Pius X before him, Pius XI’s health steadily declined as the situation in Europe deteriorated. He passed to his eternal reward in the year of Our Lord 1939, just seven months before Hitler invaded Poland. During this time, papal policy toward Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy was directed by a man who had considerable experience diplomatically dealing with both: Eugenio, Cardinal Pacelli, the Cardinal Secretary of State. In the Conclave following Pius XI’s death, the College of Cardinals elected Pacelli to be the Pope who would guide the Church through the Second World War. He took the regnal name of Pius XII.

Ven. Pius XII

Pius XII was greatly devoted to Our Lady of Fatima, having been consecrated as a bishop by Pope Benedict XIV on May 13, 1917: the day of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima. Like St. Pius V and Bl. Pius IX before him, Ven. Pius XII was a Marian Pope. He dogmatically defined the dogma of Our Lady’s Assumption in the year of Our Lord 1950, just as Pius IX had dogmatically defined the dogma of her Immaculate Conception in the year of Our Lord 1854. A century afterward, in the year of Our Lord 1954, Pius XII established the feast of the Queenship of Our Lady and a year later, he established the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

Most notably, during the height of World War II, Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on October 31 in the year of Our Lord 1942. Apparently, he himself did not believe that such a consecration fulfilled the request of Our Lady at Fatima, since he himself consecrated “the peoples of Russia” to the Immaculate Heart in his papal bull Sacro Virgente, issued on July 7, in the year of Our Lord 1952. By this point, the Second World War was over but the Cold War was in full swing and threatening to heat up every day. At this point, it would have been clear exactly why Our Lady had warned of Russia spreading her errors and various nations being annihilated. However, since the consecration was done via a papal bull and not in union with the bishops of the world, it did not completely fulfill Our Lady’s request and the Soviet Union continued to be a godless atheist menace.

Sts. John XXIII and Paul VI

Pius XII passed to his eternal reward on October 9 in the year of Our Lord 1958. In the ensuing Conclave, the College of Cardinals elected Giuseppe Angelo, Cardinal Roncalli to succeed him, who took the regnal name of John XXIII, but almost took the name Joseph. Giuseppe is the Italian form of Joseph and even after his accession to the papal throne, “Good Pope John” (as he came to be called) had a strong devotion to St. Joseph. He named St. Joseph as patron of the Second Vatican Council, during which, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception in the year of Our Lord 1962, St. Joseph was added to the communicantes of the Roman Canon of the Mass.  

Lucia, the last surviving Fatima seer, had entered a convent in the year of Our Lord 1928 and under obedience to her religious superiors put the Third Secret in writing in the year of Our Lord 1943. She stipulated that the envelope containing the Secret should be opened upon her death or in the year of Our Lord 1960, whichever came first. In the year of Our Lord 1959, John XXIII had been Pope for less than a year. On August 17, he opened the envelope that contained the Third Secret, read it and decided to return the sealed envelope to the archives of the Holy Office without revealing its contents. Apparently, he saw no contradiction between disregarding the words of Our Lady and his devotion to her husband. Five years later, on March 27, his successor Pope Paul VI also read the Secret and similarly did not reveal its contents.

St. John Paul II

The Third Secret would remain unrevealed for forty years. In the meantime, the year of Our Lord 1978 was the Year of Three Popes. Paul VI died August 6 and twenty days later the College of Cardinals in Conclave elected Albino, Cardinal Luciani, Patriarch of Venice to succeed. He took the name John Paul I in honor of his two predecessors. John Paul I died suddenly only 33 days later on September 28 and the College of Cardinals elected Karol, Cardinal Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow on October 16. He took the regnal name John Paul II and choose as his papal motto the Latin words Totus Tuus (“Totally Your’s”), which is a reference to the total Marian Consecration prayer popularized by St. Louis de Montfort.

Coming from Poland, John Paul II was all too familiar with the errors of Russia and the threat of annihilation of nations posed by the Soviet Union and communism as a whole. On May 13 in the year of Our Lord 1981, Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali-Agca shot the Pope in St. Peter’s Square. John Paul II was gravely wounded and almost died. He credited his survival to Our Lady of Fatima, in a large part because the assassination attempt occurred on the sixth-fourth anniversary of the first apparition. It has been repeatedly theorized that the Soviet Union was somehow behind the assassination attempt, but nothing has been conclusively proven. No doubt believing that Our Lady had saved his life for a purpose, John Paul II began looking more into the apparitions. On March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, in the Year of Our Lord 1984, he renewed the Consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart. Allegedly, he had originally intended to explicitly consecrate Russia by name, but was prevailed upon by “a number of influential cardinals” to instead consecrate the whole world. Nevertheless, at the last minute, John Paul II departed from his prepared remarks, and while he did mention Russia by name, stated, “In a special way we entrust and consecrate to you those individuals and nations which particularly need to be thus entrusted and consecrated.”

Although the consecration was done “in union with all the bishops of the world” because the Pope did not mention Russia by name, the question of whether this consecration fulfilled the requirements of Our Lady’s request has been hotly debated. Nevertheless, Sr. Lucia is reported to have said that the Consecration was “accepted by Heaven.” Moreover, it would seem to have been at least somewhat effective: Mikhail Gorbachev took over as Premier in the following year and began enacting a series of reforms, with the Soviet Union dissolving six years later in the year of Our Lord 1991.

Francis

In the year of Our Lord 2001, Pope John Paul II created Jorge Bergoglio S.J., Archbishop of Buenos Aires, a cardinal. Four years later, on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday (a feast that the Polish Pope had established), the Holy Father passed to his eternal reward. To no one’s surprise, in the Conclave that followed, the College of Cardinals elected their Dean, Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. However, it was reported that Bergoglio came in second. When Benedict XVI abdicated the papal throne almost eight years later, the College of Cardinals elected Bergoglio to take his place. Interestingly, he is reported to have told the late Francesco Cardinal Marchisano that had he been elected in the year of Our Lord 2005, he would have taken the name John XXIV. “John, I would have called myself John, like the Good Pope; I would have been completely inspired by him” However, upon the admonition of Claudio Cardinal Hummes to not “forget the poor,” the newly elected Pope chose the never before used regnal name of Francis.

Despite his taking of the name Francis, it would appear that the Holy Father is more than “completely inspired” by Pope John XXIII. A number of actions taken by Pope Francis indicate that he identifies with and seeks to carry on the work of John XXIII. Chief among these is, of course, his canonization of John XXIII, which occurred, along with that of John Paul II, on April 27 in the year of Our Lord 2014. From the time that cries of “Santo Subito” rang out in St. Peter’s Square immediately following his death in the Year of Our Lord 2005, the canonization of John Paul II, had been all but a foregone conclusion. What was far more surprising was the announcement that John XXIII would be canonized along with him.

John XXIII was beatified by the pope with whom he would be canonized on June 3, 2000. John Paul II beatified Pope Pius IX on the same day. Even at the time, this was considered unusual. It was theorized that the beatification of Pius IX was a political move, “to balance out” the beatification of a pope who even at that time was seen as an icon of progressivism with that of a noted reactionary pontiff. Ironically, some of the ideas condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors would enter the thinking of the Church following the Council that John XXIII convened..

When Pope John XXIII added St. Joseph to the Roman Canon, it was the only “Eucharistic Prayer.” After Vatican II, three more Eucharistic Prayers were added, but none of them commemorated St. Joseph (or any other saint besides the Blessed Virgin Mary). On May, the memorial of St. Joseph the Worker, in the year of Our Lord 2013, Pope Francis added St. Joseph to the other three Eucharistic Prayers. In a way, the addition of the commemoration of St. Joseph to the other Eucharistic Prayers is emblematic of the desire of Pope Francis to visibly carry on in the tradition of John XXIII.

But Pope Francis has taken this devotion even further. On the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception in the Year of Our Lord 2020, exactly 150 years after Blessed Pope Pius IX named St. Joseph as patron of the Universal Church, Pope Francis issued the apostolic letter Patris Corde (“With the Heart of a Father”). In it, he declared a Year of St. Joseph beginning on that day. Now, just over three months since the close of that year and six days after the ninth anniversary of his pontifical inauguration, Pope Francis consecrated Russia to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, as she requested at Fatima. It would seem that St. Joseph is truly blessing the world, once again.

Pope Sts. Pius X, John XXIII and John Paul II, ora pro nobis!

Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto, ora pro nobis!

Our Lady of Knock and Fatima, ora pro nobis!

St. Joseph, spouse of the Virgin Mary and patron of the Universal Church, ora pro nobis!